This quote is so true.
Think about it.
White police officers are the only ones that are capable to have their “fear” of us, be something that allows them to murder in cold blood. The fact that we exist, scares them. Whenever they have to pull us over, we inspire fear and irrational action in them, because we’re here. Clearly, it’s why so many of them can lose all thought when interacting with us and escalate situations to murderous conditions. So many “mistakes” occur, because of a high level of tension/anxiety/fear. This is bad enough to have people forget which object they’re reaching for in the heat of the moment. It was supposed to be a taser. They yell the word taser, but of course, grab the lethal tool instead and get “shocked” into the gravity of their choice, once it’s too late to switch it up.
If I hear one more explanation comprised of: “They shouldn’t have been resisting, or they should just be still in their cars” I might just explode with equal parts of rage and confusion. I don’t know of any setting where someone would be even-tempered and chill when in the face of murderers, outside of horror movies. In the movies, the people always seem to make some silly mistake that throws them right in the path of the killer. Maybe they just made a bad choice, or they were too inquisitive to let things lie the way they should, but that’s not how things work in real life. If you’re approached with a gun out and pointed towards you, how would you expect someone to react? ESPECIALLY knowing what could (AND HAS REPEATEDLY) happened. Why would you expect anyone to act in self-preservation? We’re told that we shouldn’t resist, but get attacked and killed when we don’t, we’re attacked and killed when we do. It almost doesn’t even matter, until we consider the feelings of the white folks involved, or who can see these things happening. Any sane person would try to get out of that situation or at least hope that they have enough witnesses around that might keep something dumb from happening (yeah right).
I am beyond dumbfounded at the fact that one such murder case is being televised in (what I hear is) its entirety. At first, it was because such high-profile kinds of cases usually don’t allow cameras in the courtroom. I could, of course, be wrong about the outcome here, but what often happens is that there is some inconceivably adept defense mounted, then the officer gets let go because they were afraid, or confused. Seems rather gratuitous to then air this trial on television, right? I eventually pieced together the idea that because none of these are usually televised, this would be the chance of the criminal justice system to show how this kind of thing works in court so that the public can see that due diligence was followed and the jurors came to a realistic conclusion based on clear evidence that the officer was acting within their duties while performing murder.
The public must get the idea of fair trials in their heads for the next one (that won’t be televised). At least they’ll have an idea of what kind of information is presented (outside of what cell phone cameras can pick up, or what bodycam footage is allowed to be made public). If we’re shown that the process is being followed, it might save face and quell the desire to have people protest riot in the streets. Then the dominant race will be once again fueled by the idea that all of this is just exaggerated and the response will not fit the well thought out and deliberated decision of the jurors involved. This will be the news cycle until the next trial that wants to groom us for a “proper” response comes along. They need to show us that these people are not people, they’re criminals who have done bad things in their lives, they were not willing to own up to the responsibilities of the crimes that they perpetrated, once they were caught up and had to face the consequences of whatever fake money they tried to use, or previous marijuana conviction was on their record.
Please don’t let me forget to note that plenty of mass shootings happen in America, most of them are carried out by some entitled white male, who miraculously is successfully apprehended with no real danger caused to him, or given enough space to kill himself before he has to face the music and be held responsible for what he has done. Then we’re fed the idea by the media that this person was deeply troubled, they had mental issues, they were misguided and trying to do something they thought was noble. All those people get to either go home or be visited by their families after things settle down. Only the people of color end up being killed before any kind of trial, or really before any kind of reason can be used. This is then spun by the same media, to remind folks of any small or large indiscretion that they could have committed (and possibly moved on from). So that the feelings of white people can be properly influenced to believe that just another dangerous child was taken off the streets (those toy guns are so deadly and cannot be taken lightly). If given the proper context, we can be soothed into believing that people are just out there doing their job and the stress of that job commands respect over the justice they’re supposed to be upholding.
For the record, I feel the same sense of defeat that I felt the day that the Capitol was attacked. Initially, I was astonished by what I was watching on CNN, but that gave way to the idea that as long as white people feel a certain way, they can do anything in this country. As I watched these “patriots”, enraged by the idea that their country was slipping away from them, I got a pain in my stomach, knowing that as horrible as this was, if any people of color got caught PLANNING something of this magnitude, they’d be killed for treason, without having carried anything out. These people were perceived as being better than protestors because they weren’t holding U.S. cities hostage or anything. They were just expressing their anguish about where they thought the country was heading. I feel defeated because when I was a little kid, I thought that seeing Rodney King get beaten on camera was the beginning of a brand new sense of accountability. All these years later, I can watch an insurrection on television in America and know that all the strong words and finger-wagging is performative and once things cool down, anyone that was involved will either get out on bail or will have access to reputation saving lawyers that will talk down some judge from giving them what they deserve.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed that we allow ourselves to be subjugated this way by institutions that were never intended for all people to make any headway. We should be ashamed that we allow ourselves to watch this happen with such frequency, but we do not stand up and make moves towards making any lasting type of change to the way that things operate. Don’t get it twisted, voices are shouting into the void, that this is wrong and that things have to change, but somehow, we vote in people who uphold and benefit from the blatantly terrible and murderous system that has given them the audacity to continue the work of their forefathers with no regards for anything other than how things make them feel. It’s a weird feeling to be living in the “greatest country on earth”, where we rank #1 mostly in hatred. To know that other countries look at us as clowns inspiration for how power and prosperity can work in our favor.
Yet, for reasons that people of color in this country know, white feelings are held in MUCH higher regard than our lives. You can’t be a person of color, or a woman (even of the caucasian persuasion) in a lot of cases, because autonomy and the ability to just exist seems to be such a threat to the well-established status quo of people. A lot of white people cannot wrap their heads around the truth of this statement, they don’t FEEL this is true. They don’t see how dangerous their feelings are for so many that call this deadly country home too. I’m purposely not including any words about how we can fix this or move forward, which will potentially turn you off if you made it this far. Quite simply put, we’ve pointed this out to people in various ways, which were all ignored, or brushed off. So I don’t feel a high calling to educate anyone. I do feel a high calling to continue to call ignorance, bigotry, and sexism out when I see it, but someone else is gonna have to do this work of education. I FEEL like it is now a responsibility for a lot of the white people in America to get started on rectifying their miseducation.
Dammit, I guess I did end up giving some words about how to fix things, despite my better intentions.
Vernacular Dysfunction 